Vmrc Restricts Eel Catch To Curb Overharvesting

November 28, 1990|By MARK DI VINCENZO Staff Writer

NEWPORT NEWS — The Virginia Marine Resources Commission, hoping to slow the decline of the eel population in state waters, approved on Tuesday two measures to keep efficient watermen from overharvesting the bony, snakelike fish.

"Some of our watermen should be commended for creating a better mousetrap," said commission member Donald L. Liverman Sr., "but we're here to protect the mice."

The most notorious mousetrap builder is William Lampkins, a Churchland waterman accused by other watermen of fishing with as many as 1,200 fish pots - 900 to 1,000 more than most eelers use. Commission member John W. Freeman Sr., among others, accused Lampkins of fishing in ship channels, which is illegal.

The channels serve as eel "sanctuaries," especially during cold weather, said Jim Wesson, president of the Working Watermen's Association of Virginia.

"Our catch has dropped dramatically because of him," said Peter Nixon, an eeler and president of the Lower Chesapeake Bay Watermen's Association, who informed the commission about Lampkins' fishing methods.

John Cope, an attorney representing Lampkins, said Lampkins has done nothing illegal and has never used more than 500 pots. What's more, Cope said, he has seen no evidence that the eel population is shrinking in Virginia.

"The stocks are down; the catches are down; the average size of eels being caught are down," said Jack G. Travelstead, chief of the commission's fisheries management division.

Virginia seafood buyers bought 863,226 pounds of eels in 1988 and 522,640 pounds in 1989, said Ellen B. Smoller, a fisheries management specialist with the commission. The numbers don't include the eels caught by Virginia watermen and sold to Maryland and North Carolina buyers.

The decrease in sales along with the consensus observation that watermen are catching fewer large eels this year indicate that eels are in trouble in Virginia.

"I think they're in a severe decline," Wesson said.

A majority of commission members also believe that. On Tuesday they placed a limit of 1,200 feet on fishing lines for eels and required those lines to be marked on both sides with buoys.

Limiting the length of lines is expected to limit the number of fishing pots that can be connected to the lines and, in turn, the amount of eels caught, Travelstead said. Marking buoys is expected to better identify lines, though watermen fear thefts will increase.

"In some places, you put a buoy up, and it and your catch is gone the next day." said J.B. Hicks IV, president of the Association of Independent Watermen.

Still, Hicks, Wesson and Nixon, leaders of the three watermen's groups, said they support the commission's action on Tuesday, although watermen traditionally oppose any restrictions.

Smoller said most of the 275 or so eelers in Virginia fish one pot per buoy and won't be affected by the commission's action which is expected to "conserve the resource."

"The main thing it should do," Wesson said, "is to stop the real big rigs from proliferating in bay" rivers, where most eels are caught in Virginia.

In the Lafayette River, in Norfolk, for example, "you cannot catch eels," Nixon said. "There are zero eels there now."

Nixon said Lampkins fished so many pots that he has used 16 bushels of blue crabs per day for bait, placing one or two crabs in each pot. He also said Lampkins fished shipping channels, including the one between Waterside in Norfolk and the Portsmouth Seawall, where watermen haven't been allowed to fish in 20 years.

Lampkins' attorney and his father, John Lampkins, denied that, but commission member Freeman said he saw Lampkins fishing in channels.

"One man has been identified; one man has been penalized," Cope said, "because he came up with a more efficient way of harvesting eels."